Lies
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: He hauled himself over the last impossible step onto Foggy's landing, pushing hard against the banister as his tibia seared at a moment of pressure. (Part of the "Cut Again" series previously posted to AO3 and tumblr)


This one's a little rougher than my others, so apologies in advance!

He shouldn't have been able to make it up the four flights of stairs to Foggy's apartment. And yet there he was, his right hand gripping the banister so hard it should have probably broken off by now, his chest heaving as quietly as he could manage with the effort. Here he was. Sweating profusely, his hair dampened and sticking slightly to his forehead. Here he was. Blood drying, matting the stubble on the side of his face. Here he was. Cracking a ridiculous smile because he'd made it up those stupidly difficult stairs to his best friend's fucking apartment.

There was probably something really, really wrong, then. It was an almost pathetic sense of accomplishment. A petty feat his mind was blowing entirely out of proportion. His lower leg was at once numb and burning, twice the size it should have been. Below that it was just really fucking painful. And he was about to laugh because on top of it all he'd just climbed up those stairs to get help from someone he wasn't sure was even home.

That was probably the scariest part- usually he could walk past a building and note that there were twelve people inside, that three of them were making dinner, one was taking a shower, four were watching TV on three different channels, the cat in apartment 4 hadn't had his litter box cleaned in two days and the chinchilla the kids in apartment 3 were petsitting was probably not going home intact at the end of the week.

Right now, from inside the building, he could say with confidence only that there were some people here, that one of them was making curry, and that it made him want to throw up. The blood on his face indicated he'd probably taken some blow to the head. He sort of remembered it. That was probably a problem. Functionally, however, the fire still burned, was still there. Focusing on the minutiae was, seemingly in spite of that, nearly impossible. A concussion, probably. He'd definitely had worse ones though.

He focused as hard as he could, finding himself only dimly aware that someone was moving around in Foggy's apartment.

Thank God.

He hauled himself over the last impossible step onto Foggy's landing, pushing hard against the banister as his tibia seared at a moment of pressure. He was actively stopping himself from thinking the word fracture. Ribs were one thing. Debilitating at first, maybe, but with practice even severe pain in his trunk had become easier to hide than a broken leg.

His right hand fumbled against the wall. There was no more railing, and for a moment he stood lost in an abyss of stale air conditioning and his own weird blood-sweat smell. Disconcerting, for someone who could usually sense through walls.

He knew the relative position of the door from memory and he was able to limp to it, his hands curling into tight fists to keep him from making a sound, a deep, white-hot sensation taking over the otherwise numb part of his leg with each step. The doorframe was long-ago polished wood, now almost rough under his hand in patches. He sagged against it. Forced one still-fisted hand to pound on the door.

Foggy took longer than usual to answer. Matt willed himself to stay upright, pressing the back of his head against the wood, schooling his breathing back into an artificial easiness. Finally, he felt the knob turn and the door open, could sense Foggy's face near his own. Relief. He was safe.

"Foggy, I know how this look-" He wasn't sure what he was going to say after that. An apology, maybe, and a guilty request for asylum. The weird numb-burning had turned to throbbing, he really needed to sit down…

"Jesus, Matt." Foggy had started to open the door, but stopped. The curry smell wafted out of the apartment. It took most of his conscious effort to stop himself from gagging. He slid a few inches down the doorframe, felt the door open a little more as Foggy's hands clamped awkwardly under his arms, stopping his decent and allowing him to get a better grip on the door. "Hey, hey, what happened?"

"Leg's just a little weak…" He explained.

"Foggy, did you just say Matt?" Matt felt Foggy freeze as Karen's voice carried through the door. There was a wall between them, she was out of eyeshot. One of her legs bumped the table as she moved to stand, a plate knocked against a glass. They'd been having dinner. Curry.

"Just a second!" Foggy called just a little too loudly, trying and failing to keep his voice steady, to get a handle on the situation. But it was already too late, Matt could hear her feet against the wood floor. "What do you want me to do, man?" Foggy whispered.

Matt grimaced. Part of it was pain- staying upright was getting more difficult by the second. But the other part, the part that was more pressing in the next second or so, was that he'd managed, once again, to put himself in a position where one of his friends had to know his identity. If he kept the mask on, refused to reveal his identity, Karen would call 911. There was no lie he or Foggy could tell to stop her. If he forced the door shut before she rounded the partition, there was a very real chance he would pass out on Foggy's landing. Whoever was the next up the stairs with a cell would call anyway. Nothing solved.

His good leg had started to shake, though he wasn't sure whether it was from the added stress of picking up the other leg's slack, or just that his whole being was on the verge of collapse and the last drop of adrenalin afforded by Karen's presence had utterly exhausted him. He gritted his teeth and tried to force himself still, but it wasn't working. Foggy's grip shifted into a better position for keeping him upright. This had been a bad idea.

But it had been his only idea. And now he was about to pay the price for his lack of creativity. And the lying. That would probably come up at some point too.

He knew the exact moment she saw him by the way her footsteps stopped. A quick step back, another pause. "That's…That's the Man in the Mask." It was all she said, a statement of the obvious, coated in incredulity. And he knew she was looking at the blood flaking on his face and the way he was shaking and how Foggy was taking so much of his weight now. If she had ever expected to see his sorry ass again, it surely hadn't been in the door to Foggy's apartment, clearly beaten to hell.

And she was certainly not expecting him to be Matt, anyway. But he could sense her putting two and two together. "Its me, yeah, its Matt." No other explanation, because none would do. But it did need to come from him before she had to learn it the way Foggy had.

"Oh." A pause. "Shit."

But then he wasn't quite sure what happened next. He ended up hitting the floor mostly conscious at least, he guessed, could feel the sting where he'd clearly taken his own weight across his forearms before slumping sideways. He didn't quite remember it actually happening. Nor did he remember anyone pulling off his mask, or anyone laying him out completely flat. But he was now dimly aware that these things must have occurred for him to be in the position he was.

The door was also closed, his good foot resting up against it, his body not quite fitting into Foggy's small entryway. "Don't call." he said, knowing, again only vaguely, that they were arguing in dim whispers over him. "Call Claire." And he hoped they figured out that the two weren't supposed to be connected, that they could call Claire, just not 911 and…

They stopped talking at once and began to check him over and he made himself let them. Made his hands relax as their's moved over his body. Made his breathing quiet and steady, a semblance of okayness that wasn't quite there. They were both shaking as bad as he was. So he maintained icy control as his body cried out for him to gasp, for his fists to clench with pain and embarrassment.

He'd already screwed them over enough for one lifetime. He didn't want to take more advantage by showing just how freaked he was, just how much his leg and head hurt. They didn't need to see that.

And the fact that she was still by his side meant maybe what he'd done hadn't sunk in yet. Maybe tomorrow the onslaught would come. The proclamation that she didn't want to work in the same space as he did anymore. That he'd lied to her a hundred or more times. He needed to hear it. He'd take it. This couldn't happen again.

Foggy'd found his leg, and he heard a muffled expletive that he didn't want to make out. His face contorted involuntarily, all his effort had to go to not making a sound himself. Not letting them know he was in pain. They shouldn't have to comfort him. He'd done this to himself when he made the decision to go out there and take on Hell's Kitchen dressed as a damn ninja.

But then Karen put her hand on his shoulder, and he wanted to believe her with everything he had when she echoed Foggy's words. "We'll help, it'll be okay."


End file.
